38 Minutes

Some moron flipped an emergency alert switch in Hawaii and had the whole state running for cover in anticipation of an incoming nuclear missile.  

People were rushing to shelters, the interstates (yes, Hawaii actually has interstates, though they're all on Oahu) were clogged with traffic, and parents were sending their children down manholes (which must have been cool for the kids, since they probably thought they were going to meet the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), with all of this mass hysteria over a North Korean attack that didn't actually happen!

And it took thirty-eight minutes - about the time it takes to watch "This Is Us" with all of the commercials taken out - before anyone in Hawaii could let people know it was a false alarm. 

Oh dear, imagine if this nimrod at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency had spilled Pepsi on the controls? (A similar false alarm also occurred in Japan.)

Did Trump do anything to reassure Hawaiians that they'd be safe?  Of course not; he was too busy playing golf in Florida.  But then why bother taking care of the hysteria in Hawaii, a state that voted for your opponent in the 2016 presidential election and was (allegedly) the birthplace of your predecessor?   Not to mention the least white state in the Union?  

The act of an emergency alarm pulled by mistake in the second-closest state to North Korea at a time of heightened tensions between their lunatic leader and our lunatic leader could have been a miscalculation that could have led to all-out war.  It's very sobering . . . as well as the fact that if Kim Jong Un ever does fire a missile into the Aloha State, it's going to be pretty hard for anyone to escape in a state comprised of volcanic islands in the middle of the Pacific.

Sorry for all of the black humor here . . . but laughing at what scares you is sometimes the best way to keep going. 

Going Nuclear

I thought we'd be spared any more saber rattling between Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un.  U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (above) has been in talks with the Chinese in an attempt to cool the tensions between the United States and North Korea and said there would be "lines of communications" with Pyongyang to prevent what Tillerson called the "dark situation" of a nuclear crisis. He even got China to approve sanctions on North Korea.

Then Trump told him to cut it out.

Trump told Tillerson that his efforts were a waste of time and added, "Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"

This sounds like a man who sees the danger of the North Korean crisis and is ready to take bold and decisive action to resolve it.

I meant Rex Tillerson.

It just flabbergasts me that Trump would rather risk - nay, start - a full-scale war in Asia and turn half if not all of Korea in to an ash pit than do anything that could avoid it.  Such a war could easily engulf a good chunk of the rest of the planet.

Both Trump and Tillerson have grandchildren.  The difference between the two is that Tillerson, who also opposed pulling out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, wants his grandchildren to live in a clean, safe world.

Tillerson obviously views his grandchildren differently.  He actually loves them.

The H-Word

No, not "hurricane."  "Hydrogen."  As in a hydrogen bomb.  And North Korea has one!

And contrary to Rex Tillerson's insistence that Kim Jong Un (third from right) has shown restraint with nukes, he's tested this one, underground.  It even caused an earthquake!

Yeah, Uncle Rex, Kim's showing a lot of restraint, isn't he?

Kim doesn't believe that the U.S. doesn't want to overthrow him and reunite the Korean peninsula under the Republic of Korea government in Seoul.  But we should believe him if (when?) he promises to nuke Los Angeles if we don't get our troops out of South Korea.  Whether we do or not, Kim has sent a message to South Korean President Moon Jae-in that should be crystal clear - "Good night, Mr. Moon." 

And coming in February 2018 . . . the Pyeongchang Nuclear Winter Olympics! 

Who needs climate change and hurricanes that are so strong we need a sixth category for them when a country the size of Mississippi can bring about Armageddon in a matter of days? :-O 

Fire and Rain

The sanctions against North Korea to deter its development of a nuclear weapon this past Sunday came too late, as Kim Jong Un's government reportedly miniaturized a nuclear device to fit onto one of its missiles, which was reported on Tuesday.

The dear leader promised "fire and fury" against his adversary like the world "has never seen before."

Kim said that?  No, Donald Trump!

Later it was reported that North Korea was considering an attack on Guam.

As dangerous as Kim and his paranoia toward the United States are, Trump's airheaded machismo is exponentially worse.  The only way to deal with North Korea at this point is to try to find a diplomatic solution to avoid a military confrontation that could lead to a full-scale war worse than the one on the Korean peninsula in the early 1950s.  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been making one declaration after another that the U.S. has no intention of removing Kim from power and uniting Korea under the government in Seoul, and now Trump has undermined him by answer Kim's nasty rhetoric with even nastier rhetoric.  With North Korea promising to rain fire down on the United States - including the East Coast! - those fallout shelters I used to see as a kid are going to have to be put back into service.  

And the Mormons can be expected to congregate en masse along the banks of the Missouri River for the Second Coming when Moroni blows his horn. :-O  

And remember, South Korea would be annihilated by a North Korean attack and and Japan is under greater threat than we are by virtue of its proximity to Korea.  South Korea's forces are too small to beat back North Korea alone, and Japan doesn't have much of a military to begin with these days.  Guess who's expected to step into the breach.  Guess.

Oh yeah, only 37 percent of voters approve of the way Trump is handling the Korea crisis. Good news, until you realize the 37 percent are the same voters that Steve Bannon wants to keep Trump connected to.

With hopes for a negotiated settlement with North Korea slipping away, we have to pin our hopes on the President . . . of China. Xi Jinping is the last person who can talk Kim Jong Un of the ledge over self-destruction.  Kim is, somewhat ironically, interested in survival, and if Xi can convince his fellow Communist leader that restraint in handling nuclear arms is his best recourse, that will help a lot.  But I don't see how he does that.  I don't even see how anyone keeps Trump restrained.

In the meantime, we have Trump trash-talking a guy who might be able to take out Los Angeles in a few months and take out Guam sooner.  I've never been afraid of nuclear war in my entire life, not even when Reagan was President, but I am now.  Even with Secretary Tillerson saying that Americans can "sleep well at night."  

And deciding to hold three consecutive Olympiads in the Far East has turned out to be a really stupid idea. :-(